A closer look at behaviour on Facebook and YouTube.

The IAB have released an interesting study looking at visitor behaviour on both YouTube and Facebook. The research looks at the behaviour and attitudes of YouTube and Facebook users, with the aim of understanding the role of each in users’ online lives, including :

Motivations for visiting the sites and how they feel when they do

‘Social’ activities conducted on each

Attitudes towards brand presence & different types of advertising on the sites

Motivations and behaviours around viewing and sharing brand content

The online survey had over 1,000 respondents in each country (UK, France and Germany) aged 16-55 years. To qualify, respondents had to use YouTube and Facebook at least once a month. Fieldwork took place in June 2010.

Some of the Key findings:

While it’s commonly assumed that everyone uses YouTube and Facebook, the overlap is smaller than you’d expect.

1. Social networking is greater than any single site. YouTube and Facebook play different but integral roles in a user’s online social experience.

2. Brands that advertise on each site benefit from the perceived attributes of each site.

3. Users are equally likely to check out brands on both sites, but which brands and what type of content they look for differ.

4. Loyalty and familiarity are not the driving force behind recommendations. Whether people share or like a brand depends greatly on whether its content is interesting.

Some of the motivations towards sharing on YouTube:

Some of the motivations towards sharing on Facebook:

We can see straight away that liking a brand on Facebook is different from the reasons behind sharing on YouTube, with the majority of people interested in receiving additional product info, and the next highest factor being the hunt for a deal. The study found however, that visitors searching for additional product info on a brand page on Facebook and YouTube are 50% more likely to share the information they find with friends or family.

This is just one of the statistics found in the report that makes for interesting reading. You can view the full 39 slides of findings in this embedded presentation below. (rss folks, click through to see it, doesn’t seem to have embedded in Google reader).